Turning 70? Here’s What to Review in Your Retirement Plan This Tax Year – 2026

Turning 70? Here’s What to Review in Your Retirement Plan This Year

Seventy is a stopping point in one specific, important way, and a preparation checkpoint in several others. Unlike the softer, more flexible windows at 50 and 60, one decision actually has to be made by this age, and a several other retirement-planning considerations are also approaching.

Why 70 is the real stopping point for delaying Social Security

For anyone who hasn’t yet claimed Social Security, delayed retirement credits stop accruing at age 70. There’s no additional benefit increase after you reach 70, even if you continue to delay starting benefits. The monthly benefit does not increase from further delay.*

Qualified charitable distributions become available

For anyone charitably inclined, qualified charitable distributions, direct transfers from an IRA to a qualifying charity, become available starting at age 70½, a rule that predates and wasn’t changed by more recent retirement law updates. Subject to applicable requirements and limitations, a QCD generally can satisfy charitable giving goals while allowing an otherwise taxable IRA distribution to be excluded from taxable income, which is a meaningfully different tax outcome than withdrawing the money first and donating it afterward.**

Preparing for required minimum distributions before they arrive

Required minimum distributions don’t begin at 70 under current law, they begin later, but 70 is close enough to that deadline to matter. The years before RMDs begin provide an opportunity to model what those future required withdrawals may actually look like and evaluate the potential tax impact of any additional Roth conversions before RMDs begin. Once RMDs begin, some of the planning flexibility available right now may no longer exist.**

Watching for Medicare premium surcharges

Medicare premiums are calculated using income from two years prior, which means income decisions made now, a large Roth conversion, a big charitable distribution, an unusual withdrawal, can affect Medicare premium costs two years from now. This is one of the more commonly overlooked interactions in retirement planning, a decision that looks purely like a tax question can quietly become a healthcare cost question as well.***

When to bring in outside help

Coordinating a final Social Security claiming decision, charitable giving strategy, pre-RMD tax planning, and Medicare premium exposure all at once is exactly the kind of multi-part decision that benefits from a second set of eyes. As an independent fiduciary, Apriem works with clients through this specific stretch, coordinating the investment, tax, and income-timing decisions together rather than reviewing them in isolation.

Have a question about your retirement plan?

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